For the most part, it is every country music artist’s dream to perform the Grand Ole Opry. For one Los Alamos native, that dream is inching toward reality.
James Carothers moved his family to Nashville, Tennessee, on Jan. 5 after signing a deal with a booking agent — Third Coast Talent.
The booking agency handles clients from the U.S., Europe, Canada and Australia. Carothers said his latest album, Honky Tonk Land is doing better on the UK charts right now than in the U.S.
A performer on the Gordon’s Summer Concert Series for two seasons, Carothers is very well known around town. He spent most of his life in Los Alamos and is a 2000 graduate of Los Alamos High School. “Los Alamos, for its size, is one of the best venues in the world because of the Gordon’s concerts,” Carothers said.
He was the singer in the Renegade Mountain Band, but has since gone solo. He said he still remains close to his former band members. “Everyone has been real supportive,” he said. “They are a great group of guys.”
The band performed at the 2014 Fourth of July celebration in White Rock.
Carothers credits his influences as Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash. His sound is that of traditional country and some outlaw country, Carothers said.

It’s been almost fourteen years since Badfish, a Tribute to Sublime played its first show in Matunuck, Rhode Island. Since then, Badfish has not only become a fixture on the national touring circuit, but the band has consistently sold out venues along the way.
This past May, Badfish sold out a weekend at the acclaimed Nelson Ledges Quarry Park in Garrettsville, Ohio, packing in 5,000 fans each day for one of the most memorable weekends in the band’s history.
Now, with a tour beginning this week, the members of Badfish have decided to shake things up by returning to Sublime’s iconic 1992 debut, 40 Oz. to Freedom — which sold more than two million copies — and perform the album in its entirety.
The show will start at 8 p.m. Jan. 27 at the KTAOS Solar Center in Taos. Tickets are $15-18. It is a 21 and over show.
“It’s actually a great album to play front to back,” said Badfish drummer Scott Begin. “Like all of Sublime’s material, there are a lot of stylistic variations that keep it fun for us and the crowd. Also, it’s a great experience to hear these songs in the order that they were released. Everyone knows what ‘the next song’ is going to be.”

In November, Los Alamos Little Theatre presented a classic whodunit murder mystery, Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None.”
Beginning Friday, LALT will present another murder mystery. While the time period is also in the late 1930s of England, this play is off beat.
A spoof on the murder mystery classic, “Murdered to Death,” written by Peter Gordon, follows Inspector Pratt who fights his own incompetence to deduce the murderer.
The plot follows the grand tradition of a long weekend visit at a country estate, where things quickly go awry in a most ridiculous fashion. The owner of the house has invited several guests for the weekend to her home, where her annoyed niece and the worthless butler also reside. The audience soon finds out the odd relationships between the characters.
Once the murder occurs, it is very possible that the inefficient Acting Inspector Pratt, along with his more resourceful assistant Constable Thompkins, may never solve the case.
The director of “Murdered to Death” is Patrick Webb, who came to Los Alamos from Fairbanks, Alaska. While in Alaska, Webb had the privilege of playing the role of the Frenchman Pierre in a local production of the play.

NEW YORK (AP) — Sting will be going down with his ship.
Producer Jeffrey Seller said Tuesday that the Grammy Award-winning songwriter’s Broadway musical “The Last Ship” will close when his stint in the show ends Jan. 24 at the Neil Simon Theatre.
Sting, who wrote the songs, jumped into the musical in early December, playing a shipyard foreman that had been portrayed by Jimmy Nail. While that improved sales, they didn’t skyrocket and the future looked bleak without him.
“We made the musical we wanted to make and we’re fiercely proud of it,” Seller said. “It’s been spectacular that Sting could be in it for its final weeks because now we go out with some degree of triumph. Not what I wanted. But some degree of triumph.”
“The Last Ship” is a semiautobiographical story about a prodigal son who returns to his northern England shipbuilding town to reclaim the girl he abandoned when he fled years before. He finds the workers are now unemployed and entertaining the idea of building one last boat to show off their skill and pride.

Patrons dressed the part for the 2014 viewing of Downton Abbey. There will be another opportunity to have “An Afternoon at Downton Abbey Tea, 2 p.m. Jan. 4 at the Betty Ehart Senior Center Great Room, 1101 Bathtub Row. LARSO/Courtesy

Britain’s flamboyant Baroque ensemble, Red Priest, will perform Antonio Vivaldi’s iconic work, “The Four Seasons.” Presented by the Los Alamos Concert Association, the concert will also feature works by Biber, Corelli, Purcell and Van Eyck in a program called Carnival of the Seasons.
Red Priest starts the theatrical performance 7 p.m. Jan. 9 at Duane Smith Auditorium.
Red Priest, renowned for bringing a theatrical sensibility to Baroque repertoire, takes its name from Vivaldi, known in his time as The Red Priest because he was, in fact, a priest with bright red hair. In an interview on National Public Radio, founder Piers Adams commented, “We tend to forget that people in the olden days were having fun. They were like us, and they weren’t all serious. They were experimenting and doing their own thing.”
The ensemble includes recorder player Adams, violinist David Greenberg, cellist Angela East and harpsichordist David Wright. Performing from memory, they take an innovative approach to period performance, creating a virtual orchestra through their imaginative arrangements and stagecraft.

Nothing says Christmas quite like the sound of a choir performing carols. This choir happens to be composed of tubas and euphoniums. The group came together in 2002, and has played at various venues throughout Los Alamos every holiday season since then.
The choir is made up of a core of adult musicians from other groups in Los Alamos (Big Band, Symphony, etc.) and is augmented by high school students. They play an mix of arrangements specifically created for a tuba choir. The concert will be 7:15 p.m. Dec. 20 at Fuller Lodge. Admission is free and is sponsored by The Los Alamos Arts Council.
Top from left, Larry Bronisz, Dave Korzekwa, Ryan Finn, Sally Grindstaff, Jenny Lee, Jerry Morzinski and Deniece Korzekwa.